The Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award presented by Hyundai is given to an individual who, through hockey, has positively impacted his or her community culture or society. The award honors O’Ree, the former NHL forward who became the first Black player to play in the NHL on Jan. 18, 1958, and has spent more than two decades as the NHL’s diversity ambassador. After a public voting period and votes from O’Ree, NHL executives and Hyundai executives, the winner will be announced in June. There will be a winner from the United States and one from Canada.
Today, a look at one of three Canadian finalists, Arjun Atwal:
Sonny Sekhon wasn’t surprised when Arjun Atwal decided to pass up playing pro hockey overseas to keep working on a program to help South Asian youth and others in communities of color in Canada enter and advance in the sport.
“Arjun is a proud Sikh and one of the tenets of Sikhism is a philosophy called seva, which is selfless giving to the community,” said Sekhon, friend of Atwal’s. “I know a lot of decisions in his life are motivated just because he wants to do that, to show the path that he walked to all these kids in our community to help them navigate it so that they can reach a better and further destination than he did.”
Atwal, a former major junior and Canadian college hockey forward, founded AZ1 Hockey in 2020 to expand hockey, primarily within Western Canada’s South Asian, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and new immigrant communities where families may not have the resources or knowledge to guide their children through the sport.
“My focus as a South Asian athlete that was privileged enough to play for 20 years — lucky enough, while I was playing — I got the chance to give back to not only my community, but other minority communities that need growth within the game of hockey,” the 25-year-old Edmonton native said. “Our mission is to kind of make hockey a little bit more affordable, a little more accessible. Seva is a huge, huge word that that really drives our organization.”
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